Eco/Environmental Attribute Overview

There are a wide variety of environmentally-responsible sources for wood products. And - wood is one of the most environmentally “green” products – see why.

At the same time, there is a high degree of confusion concerning “green” wood products given the lack of consistent industry standards guiding the language describing them. Terms such as recycled, salvaged, green, certified, reclaimed are often used interchangeably and “sustainable” is claimed by nearly everyone. Then, we also have the issue of the 3rd party certifiers changing their definitions annually just like the US tax laws - and expecting all of us to keep current.

At EcoTimber, we have been involved in sourcing wood for decades and have seen too many “3rd party” certification programs come and go to hang our hat solely on their latest definitions “du jour” of sustainability - which seem to change each year anyway.

Recognizing this lack of clarity, EcoTimber has made an effort to rationalize the language used to describe “green” wood products, organize them into logical categories and then identify them with a simple system of symbols which need NOT change each year. The result of this work is the following set of “Eco” icons, which we affectionately call "Econs". Click on any individual Econ for a more detailed explanation of that category.

And, we invite EVERYONE to copy and make full use of them!

Recyled Wood Fiber

Recycled Wood Fiber is wood fiber that is a by-product of other wood manufacturing processes, and includes the resultant waste such as sawdust, veneer backer boards, peeler cores, and so forth. This type of recycled content is described as “pre-consumer” or “post-industrial” (the latter is the term we favor).

Note: there is also “post-consumer” recycled content, which involves recycling wood products & wood fiber that has already been used by consumers and discarded is now reworked into new products or simply reused as is.

Reclaimed Wood

Reclaimed Wood covers all previously manufactured wood products that are now either being reused as is or are remanufactured into new products. Examples of remanufactured items include timbers from the deconstruction of old buildings, fences or crates/dunnage that is then re-milled into new products like flooring. Examples of reuse include the reuse of doors, windows, flooring and other wood products like posts that reused “as is” without remanufacturing into another product.

There are a large number of companies around the country that deal in building materials, components, fixtures, etc. (including doors, windows, doorknobs, mantles, bathtubs, sinks, you name it) that have been reclaimed from demolished buildings and would otherwise go to local landfills. Many of these companies offer wood flooring that is reclaimed and resold "as is."

Following are excerpts from the website of a company that offers these products: Second Use Building Materials strives to divert reusable building materials from the landfill, thereby preserving our resources and providing cost-effective remodeling supplies for our community.

Second Use opened in 1994 when contractor and environmental activist Roy Hunter ran out of space at home for storing the vast quantities of reusable construction and demolition "waste" he had collected. Our original Woodinville store consisted of tarp shelters loosely set up to protect the material from the Northwest elements. With lots of hard work and a devoted staff, Second Use soon expanded to its present location in south Seattle.

Since then, our impact on waste diversion has grown dramatically. Each month, we salvage approximately 100 tons of building materials. We are privately owned, Northwest-native company that supplies the region with the most experienced salvage business and diverse inventory of reclaimed building materials. We keep our prices low, to provide homeowners, contractors, and artists with affordable supplies to complete almost any project.

Our location in the south Seattle takes advantage of our proximity to our landfill neighbors, by raising awareness on waste and reuse. We pick up and receive materials 7 days a week, so our inventory is constantly changing. In addition, to our ever-changing supply of contemporary building materials, we also have a boutique area that includes many older lights, bath fixtures, hardware, and stained glass, which reflect the architectural history of Seattle and the region.

Wood can be deconstructed from houses, mills, barns, bridges, tanks, warehouses, towers, railroads and just about anything else that people have built. Larger timbers and structural members resulting from deconstruction are then remilled into new products, including flooring.

Following are excerpts from an article about a company that deconstructs and reclaims wood from old barns:

RECYCLING: A Barn Reborn Mar 1, 2002 12:00 PM Kim A. O'Connell

Every morning, John High climbs into his pickup truck and drives to job sites in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware to save doomed barns from the landfill. His motto: To save every barn he possibly can.

As part of the Barn Saver Project he started in 1990, High uses crowbars and hammers to dismantle barns that are destined for demolition. Typically, barns are demolished with heavy machinery and sent to landfills. But recognizing the value in every piece of the old structures, High left his job at an excavating company — where he bulldozed old houses and barns to make room for development — and began disassembling old barns piece by piece to save the flooring, siding, windows, doors, roofing, beams, joists, hardware and even the contents, such as lightning rods and pig troughs.

In the 10 years that the Barn Saver Project has been in operation, more than 200 barns and houses have been salvaged. Between 90 percent and 100 percent of every barn is saved, High says…

A network of contractors, such as Hometown Carpentry, a Boyertown, Pa., company that specializes in barn restoration, helps to find dismantled barn buyers. For instance, when Hometown Carpentry owner Jim Slabonik is looking for a particular kind of material to restore a historic barn, he lets High know. Conversely, after dismantling a barn, High will let Slabonik and other contractors know what materials he has salvaged.

"It's a growing industry and there are a lot of people utilizing these old materials," Slabonik says. "People who have old barns want to keep them looking like they did 150 or 200 years ago."

Deconstruction can take weeks to complete — usually longer than the standard one- to five-day demolition job. However, deconstruction costs a fraction of demolition on average, High notes.

Salvaged Logs

Salvaged Logs are distinguished from other categories in that the basic wood fiber source is logs which have already been felled - rather than sawn wood or reused wood from previously manufactured wood products or current manufacturing processes. This category covers all sources for logs that are being felled for purposes other than timber harvesting (or were lost in transport) and hence are in fact salvaged. Sources include urban forest trimmings, salvaged logs from waterways, logs from orchards, or logs from felling of standing deadwood but only as a result of a major natural disaster that killed an entire forest or species.

Fruit and nut tree orchards are another source for logs that that would go to waste if they were not salvaged for timber. A prime example is EcoTimber’s Orchard Walnut.

The wood used in this product is sourced from commercial Walnut orchards located in the Central Valley of California. Here, approximately 200,000 acres of perpetual Walnut orchards, maintained by hundreds of small growers, produce 98% of the U.S. nut production. When the Walnut orchards age, (approximately forty years), they lose their nutting productivity. They are then cut down and replanted to start the orchard cycle again, with the first nuts produced in only four years.

The non-productive Walnut orchards, after being cut, are then mostly chipped for use as fuel in generating electricity. Some Walnut burls and crotches are saved and become fancy figured burl veneer found in Mercedes dashboards and the crotch figure in the finest gunstocks. EcoTimber also salvages logs for reuse in our flooring offering.

The Walnut found in most flooring and furniture in North America comes from the American Black Walnut (juglans nigra), which grows in the Eastern part of the US. The nut from this tree yields very little "meat" and hence is not harvested commercially.

The Walnut used to produce the nuts grown in the orchards of California, commonly referred to as English Walnut (juglans regia), is actually a native to the Caspian area of Central Europe.

Over the centuries, orchardists learned the most vigorous nut production occurred when English Walnut was grafted onto the rootstock of either American Black Walnut (juglans nigra) or California's native Walnut (juglans hindsii), also known as Claro Walnut.

This grafting practice is common with nut and fruit growers utilizing local species, which are hardy and disease resistant for the orchard locale for their rootstock, and then grafting better fruiting non-local varieties onto this rootstock in order to maximize both hardiness of the tree and fruit production.

Grafting is performed when the Walnut is a young sapling and quickly the two different grafted varieties bond together and grow as one. But even fifty years later one can always see the dark line of the graft itself and also see that the wood on either side of the graft is different. This is our mark of Orchard authenticity! In most cases, the upper section of English Walnut is a lighter color while the Claro Walnut root stock is much darker with lots of intense character.

In this category, we are not referring to the occasional individual tree that dies in the forest and is a natural occurrence. Instead, we are referring to a large number of trees killed by natural catastrophe, offering the opportunity to salvage thousands of standing deadwood logs. Examples include a species that is decimated by blight or other disease or a large tract of forest damaged by wind or fire or volcanic eruption, etc.

Logs can be salvaged from conventional logging operations that concentrate on certain commercially valuable tree species while ignoring or attempting to eliminate others. On the West Coast of the U.S., for example, many large timber companies focus on softwoods like redwood, Douglas fir, and cedar view western hardwoods such as madrone, tan oak, and bay laurel as "weeds" and "junk woods" that compete with the species they are managing these forests for, sometimes going so far as to poison them. When these companies log an area of forest, the commercial softwoods go to the sawmill while the lesser valuable hardwoods many times are chipped and burned in cogeneration facilities.

While we do not condone the forest practices that produce this class of salvaged logs, we believe it is better to divert them from the chipper and use them for flooring and other high-end uses than to burn them for electricity production.

There are countless trees growing in America's cities, towns, and suburbs. Large numbers are felled every day, either because they are diseased or damaged, or simply because they are in the way. Most of the logs that come from these trees are chipped and composted, landfilled, or burned, but in some places, enterprising companies are salvaging the most desirable logs, milling them, and offering lumber and other products from this wood source.

Logs can be salvaged from lakes, rivers, dam reservoirs, and other waterways. Some logs that are salvaged from waterways are leftovers from past logging—sometimes from centuries past—when logs were primarily transported by water. Individual logs detached from log rafts and sank, awaiting rediscovery in the cold, anaerobic bottoms of lakes and rivers. Another major source for water-salvaged logs is in the reservoirs of hydroelectric projects whereby the rising waters flooded & killed the forests located behind the dams. In both cases, when the water-damaged exterior portions of these logs are removed, many yield high-quality old-growth timber.

Sustainable Forestry

The Sustainable Forestry category covers wood that is harvested from natural forests or plantations.

We have created the 3rd Party Certified Wood “Econ” to allow EcoTimber to label products correctly, but without all the requirements that certain 3rd party certifying organizations require when using their trademarks, which are difficult to meet when printing and using in graphic presentations where space is very limited. On our “Econ” we then have a reference number that ties back to which third party program a given item is certified against. Then within the limitations of that certifier, we also add their label in the manner they require.

We believe that the Forest Stewardship Council is currently the main credible forest certification program and we use the proper “on product” FSC labeling and their designations such as FSC 100%, FSC Mixed, FSC Recycled & the various current combinations. We also use, as required, their generic FSC labeling on all marketing and information pieces without any actual product attached. This generic labeling does not, as required, detail any of the portions of FSC, Mixed, Recycled.

EcoTimber also includes a category for plantations to designate timber that comes from plantations that are not established at the expense of natural forest and do not use genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

Sustainable Forestry - FSC 100% All of the wood in this product comes from forests that are certified well-managed according to the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Qualifies as FSC 100% & USGB LEED MR7. For more detailed information, click here.

All of the contents of wood flooring products that bear a 100% FSC label come from forests certified as being in compliance with the environmental and social standards of the Forest Stewardship Council.

More information on forest certification and the FSC:

Today, a growing number of timber producers and traders are making environmental claims. Some are accurate, but others are misleading or exaggerated. How can you distinguish a genuine ecological forest product from one that has been "greenwashed"? The answer is credible, independent certification for forestry and forest products.

Forest certification is a voluntary process that ensures consumers that the wood products they buy were grown and harvested in a way that protects forests for the long term. Certifiers assess the on-the-ground forest practices of a given operation against a stringent set of environmental and social criteria. Operations that meet those standards may identify their products as originating from a well-managed source. The certifier also tracks the "chain of custody" of the certified wood to ensure that it is kept separate from non-certified material at each stage of processing and distribution from forest to end user.

The Forest Stewardship Council is a not-for-profit organization that accredits certifiers whose programs conform to its internationally recognized Principles and Criteria, thereby providing a consistent and credible framework for independent certification efforts worldwide. The major FSC-accredited certifying agencies in North America are SmartWood and Scientific Certification Systems.

FSC certification enjoys the support of most major environmental groups, including World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and World Resources Institute.

In order to be certified, a company must:

Have legally established rights to harvest

Respect indigenous rights

Maintain community well-being

Conserve economic resources

Protect biological diversity

Have a written management plan

Engage in regular monitoring

Maintain high conservation value forests

Manage plantations to alleviate pressures on natural forests

The success of FSC certification has spawned competing initiatives, most of which were created and are backed by forest products industry trade groups that view FSC certification as a threat to their business interests. For instance, the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) created the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) to certify the forest lands of all of its member companies (including the major US-based forest products companies such as Weyerhaeuser, International Paper, Louisiana Pacific, and Georgia Pacific) to a standard that is widely criticized as offering inadequate environmental protections and providing a green stamp to industrial forest practices like large-scale clear cuts (often at the expense of natural forest) and chemically-intensive monoculture tree-farming. For these reasons, the LEED rating system of the US Green Building council only offers credit for FSC-certified wood products, and many major environmental groups support the FSC while actively opposing the SFI and similar industry-based initiatives.

Products bearing the FSC Mixed logo qualify for LEED credit Mrc7. To achieve MRc7, the LEED professional must use a minimum of 50% of wood-based materials and products, which are certified in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council's (FSC) Principles and Criteria, for wood building components. These components include, but are not limited to, structural framing and general dimensional framing, flooring, sub-flooring, wood doors, and finishes.

Thus, if project contractors purchase $10,000 worth of a wood flooring product that is FSC-certified, and the total value of wood building components is $100,000, then project managers will need to source another $40,000 of FSC-certified wood products to achieve MRc7.

Sustainable Forestry - FSC Mixed This product is certified according to the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for “Mixed Sources.” At least 75% of the wood in this product comes from well-managed forests; the remaining content comes from “controlled” sources—i.e. legal, non-endangered, and non-old growth sources. For more detailed information, click here.

Products

with a FSC Mixed label are made from a mix of FSC certified and non-certified (but controlled) sources. Under the Mixed program, wood comes from FSC certified well-managed forests, controlled sources and/or recycled, reclaimed, or salvaged material.

Company-controlled sources are controlled, in accordance with FSC standards, to exclude illegally harvested timber, forests where high conservation values are threatened, wood from genetically modified organisms (GMO), wood whose harvesting violates people's civil and traditional rights, and wood from forests harvested for the purpose of converting the land to non-native plantations or other non-forest use.

FSC certification enjoys the support of most major environmental groups, including World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and World Resources Institute.

In order to be certified, a company must:

Meet all applicable laws

Have legally established rights to harvest

Respect indigenous rights

Maintain community well-being

Conserve economic resources

Protect biological diversity

Have a written management plan

Engage in regular monitoring

Maintain high conservation value forests

Manage plantations to alleviate pressures on natural forests

The success of FSC certification has spawned competing initiatives, most of which were created and are backed by forest products industry trade groups that view FSC certification as a threat to their business interests. For instance, the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) created the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) to certify the forest lands of all of its member companies (including the major US-based forest products companies such as Weyerhaeuser, International Paper, Louisiana Pacific, and Georgia Pacific) to a standard that is widely criticized as offering inadequate environmental protections and providing a green stamp to industrial forest practices like large-scale clear cuts (often at the expense of natural forest) and chemically-intensive monoculture tree-farming. For these reasons, the LEED rating system of the US Green Building council only offers credit for FSC-certified wood products, and many major environmental groups support the FSC while actively opposing the SFI and similar industry-based initiatives.

Products bearing the FSC 100% logo qualify for LEED credit Mrc7. To achieve MRc7, the LEED professional must use a minimum of 50% of wood-based materials and products, which are certified in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council's (FSC) Principles and Criteria, for wood building components. These components include, but are not limited to, structural framing and general dimensional framing, flooring, sub-flooring, wood doors, and finishes.

Thus, if project contractors purchase $10,000 worth of a wood flooring product that is FSC-certified, and the total value of wood building components is $100,000, then project managers will need to source another $40,000 of FSC-certified wood products to achieve MRc7.

Like any other agricultural staple, many tree species can be efficiently produced as a crop in monocultures or near-monocultures. Unlike most agriculture crops such as corn or wheat, however, tree plantations are quite often subject to controversy and stereotyping, both negative and positive.

Forest activists and environmentalists tend to be deeply critical of the common industry practice of clear cutting and replanting, arguing that it is environmentally destructive to replace an ecologically and biologically diverse natural forest with a single, fast-growing commercial tree species. Industry players are likely to emphasize the efficiency of tree farming, arguing that it is the most cost-effective way to produce wood fiber for the benefit of society.

As might be expected, both positions have inherent merit, and both tend to trivialize the other side of the issue. The truth is that tree farming is not inherently good or bad; everything depends on the specifics of how a given tree plantation is established and managed over time, and the larger context in which tree farming takes place. Tree plantations can divert pressure from natural forest, or they can displace natural forest. One can imagine a worst-case scenario in which a natural, diverse, old-growth forest is clear cut and replaced with a monoculture of non-native, genetically-modified (GMO) trees that are then sustained with extensive artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides, driving down soil fertility and poisoning local waterways. Alternatively, one could paint a best-case scenario in which an appropriate mix of native tree species is established plantation-style on land that had previously been cleared for other uses (this is called afforestation) and natural techniques are used to build up soil fertility and control pests.

Of course, most tree farms are likely to fall somewhere between these extremes. What is the minimum standard of social and environmental responsibility for such plantations? Credible forest certification systems set standards for well-managed plantations as well as well-managed natural forests. Click here for more information on forest certification.

Click here for a profile of a well-managed tree plantation.

EcoTimber’s policy on sourcing wood from plantations (and on utilizing our Eco icon and the Plantation icon) is that we will not buy from plantations that were established at the expense of natural forest in the last 25 years, nor will we utilize GMO wood. Also, unless the plantation is already FSC certified, we will have visited the plantation we are sourcing from and determined that it is reasonably well-managed before stamping those products with this "Econ".

Other Environmental Attributes

The Other Environmental Attributes category covers all environmental attributes that are not found in the other categories, including embodied energy/local materials, air quality/added-formaldehyde, and rapid renewability.

Rapidly Renewable 15 years or less regrowth rate with average years to regrow listed. Qualifies as USGB LEED MR6. For more detailed information, click here.

Our definition of "rapidly renewable" is a plant that grows (or, in the case of cork, bark that regrows) to harvestable size in fifteen years or less. There are a large number of plants and even some trees (e.g. plantation teak), that meet this definition, but by far and away the most significant fiber resource when it comes to flooring is bamboo.

Palm flooring is made from palm trees, which is not technically wood either. Palms are in a different botanical family from other trees, and are made up of a fibrous material that resembles wood but is not. Our palm flooring comes from coconut palm plantations which are abundant around the world. Palms produce nuts for up to 80 years, then as the palms age and become non-producing, they are removed and replanted with young palms, offering a large, ongoing supply of raw material. For more information on palm flooring, click here.

An engineered finish made with plant oils and waxes, plus just enough highly refined mineral spirits to allow easy application. Offers excellent durability and renewability with a unique lustrous finish. It will never crack, blister, or flake off.

The U.S. Green Building Council® is committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings. With a community comprising 78 local affiliates, more than 20,000 member companies and organizations, and more than 140,000LEED® Professionals™, USGBC® is the driving force of an industry that is projected to contribute $554 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product from 2009-2013. USGBC leads an unlikely diverse constituency of builders and environmentalists, corporations and nonprofit organizations, elected officials, concerned citizens, teachers and students. USGBC is the developer of the LEED® green building certification program and the conveyor of the Greenbuild® International Conference & Expo."

LEED®, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is redefining the way we think about the places where we live, work and learn. As an internationally recognized mark of excellence, LEED provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

With nearly 9 billion square feet of building space participating in the suite of rating systems and 1.6 million feet certifying per day around the world, LEED is transforming the way built environments are designed, constructed, and operated --- from individual buildings and homes, to entire neighborhoods and communities. Comprehensive and flexible, LEED works throughout a building's lifecycle.

LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a building, home or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in 2000, the LEED rating systems are developed through an open, consensus-based process led by LEED committees. The next update of the LEED rating system, coined LEED 2012, is the next step in the continuous improvement process and on-going development cycle of LEED.

The LEED rating systems that address green building design, construction and operations & maintenance include, LEED for Homes, LEED for New Construction, LEED for Core & Shell, LEED for Schools, LEED for Retail, LEED for Healthcare, LEED for Neighborhood Development, LEED for Commercial Interiors and LEED for Operations and Maintenance. Learn more.

LEED has six credit categories, which are named as follows:

Sustainable Sites (SS)

Water Efficiency (WE)

Energy & Atmosphere (EA)

Innovation in Design (ID)

Innovation in Operations (IO)

EcoTimber offers products that can contribute toward satisfying certain MR and IEQ Credit Categories. (Please refer to our individual products to see which, if any, LEED Credit Categories they may contribute towards) The following two categories that are applicable for our products are:

Materials & Resources (MR)During both the construction and operations phases, buildings generate a lot of waste and use large quantities of materials and resources. The Materials & Resources category encourages the selection of sustainably grown, harvested, produced and transported products and materials. It promotes waste reduction as well as reuse and recycling, and it particularly rewards the reduction of waste at a product’s source.

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans spend about 90% of their day indoors, where the air quality can be significantly worse than outside. The Indoor Environmental Quality category promotes strategies that improve indoor air as well as those that provide access to natural daylight and views and improve acoustics.

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